Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq (cabinet.gov.krd) - In August, direct oil export from Kurdistan Region continued despite sabotage and attempted theft on the export pipeline inside Turkey borders, which occurred on 27 July and extended to the first week of August.

According to the Kurdistan Regional Government, KRG, Ministry of Natural Resources Oil Export Report, in August Kurdistan Region has exported 14,657,798 barrels of crude oil, an average of 472,832 bpd, through the Kurdistan pipeline network to the port of Ceyhan in Turkey. This is an 8.5 per cent decline comparing to 16,019,090 barrels which were exported in July.

The decline, according to the report, was due to nine days of downtime for the export pipeline which mostly occurred at the beginning of the month.

Of the exported amount, fields operated by the KRG contributed 10,958,817 barrels, an average of 353,510 bpd, while fields operated by the North Oil Company, NOC, contributed 3,698,981 barrels, an average of 119,322 bpd.

In August, the Kurdistan Regional Government delivered a total of 1,579,004 barrels, an average of 50,936 bpd, to the Iraqi State Oil Marketing Company, SOMO.

The monthly export report said that in August, the KRG “continued its direct oil sales in Ceyhan to compensate the Region for the budget shortfalls from the federal government in Baghdad and to continue to pay down debts accumulated in 2014 from pre-payments for direct oil sales” the report highlighted.”

Last week, KRG Ministry of Natural Resources confirmed that the Kurdistan Regional Council for Oil and Gas Affairs expects the first tranche of regular payments to the producing IOCs to be made available during the first half of September 2015.

In an earlier statement by KRG ministry of Natural Resources it was urged that as oil export is expected to rise in early 2016, the KRG envisages making additional revenue available to the IOCs to enable them to begin to catch up on the past receivables due under their production sharing contracts.